Socioeconomic status and chronic diseases: The case of hypertension in China

Xiaoyan Lei, Nina Yin and Yaohui Zhao

China Economic Review, 2012, vol. 23, issue 1, 105-121

Abstract: China has undergone a rapid epidemiological transition from infectious to chronic diseases, a process characterized by widespread under-diagnosis of chronic diseases and low rates of treatment and control. This paper uses hypertension as an example and documents the association of socioeconomic status with various measures of this condition, i.e., prevalence, awareness, treatment and control. We find no wealth and education gradients in the prevalence of hypertension. Given education, wealth plays some roles in improving the treatment and control of hypertension. Some associations exist between education and diagnosis/treatment/control in urban areas but not in rural areas. We also find that the public health care services in China contribute little in informing patients of their hypertension status, suggesting that how to improve the effectiveness of the health care system in dealing with emerging chronic illnesses should be policy priority.

Keywords: Socioeconomic status; Chronic diseases; Hypertension; Under-diagnosis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I10 I14 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (21)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1043951X11000848
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:chieco:v:23:y:2012:i:1:p:105-121

DOI: 10.1016/j.chieco.2011.08.004

Access Statistics for this article

China Economic Review is currently edited by B.M. Fleisher, K. X. D. Huang, M.E. Lovely, Y. Wen, X. Zhang and X. Zhu

More articles in China Economic Review from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().